A class project assigned in an engineering class at the Russellville Junior High School could result in the school receiving over a thousand dollars in grant money after one of the student’s projects was selected as a finalist in Raytheon’s nationwide Build It Better Contest.

Rachel Cogburn, an engineering teacher at RJHS, assigned the class a project after receiving an email asking students to submit ideas for a project. The criteria was open-ended: students had to find something in their school that they could improve through innovation.

“I gave them the option of submitting it to the contest,” Cogburn said. “But each individual student had to take place in the project, so everyone had to go through the process of how they would make [the school] better.”

Through the five days her classes spent working on the project, Cogburn was amazed by her students’ ideas for innovation.

“They had to look at things that they see every day and figure out some way to make it better. They had to open all of their senses to see things in a different way,” she said. “I had students pick bettering the lunch line and enhancing a desk or a pencil.”

One project in particular caught the eye of both Cogburn and the judges of the Build It Better Contest. Ninth grader Stephen Hunt’s idea to implement card readers to track attendance in each class.

Students would swipe a card that would record the time they arrived and left class, essentially taking attendance and saving valuable class time.

“Stephen’s project is unique in the fact that we don’t have anything like that,” Cogburn said.

“The high school has I.D. Cards, but this is something that wouldn’t necessarily enhance his day, but his teacher’s day. He researched his project and found out prices and how much time would be saved. He did an outstanding job with uniqueness, and he utilized great engineering skills. I’m extremely proud of all the submissions, and to have Stephen chosen was really amazing.”

Hunt’s project is one of ten projects competing for first place in the contest, which will be chosen from the project which receives the most votes on the contest’s Facebook page.

First place will receive a $2,000 grant, second place will receive $1,000 and third $500 in grant money. People interested in learning more about the project and voting for a winner can access the contest by going to MathMovesU’s Facebook page and clicking on the “Build It Better Contest” link towards the top of the page. Voting will go through May 17, and people can vote once a day.